The Case for In-Stream Advertising
The topic of whether in-stream advertising has heated up. I just read well written pieces on the topic by Ross Kimbarovsky, Robert Scoble, Paul Carr and the NY Times. I myself recently covered the topic when I spoke about why GRP Partners invested in Ad.ly. Let me lay out my defense of In-Stream Advertising because [...]
Is it a Good Idea to Have Ads in Tweets?
Advertising has driven the majority of Internet innovation My firm GRP Partners recently funded a young LA based company named Ad.Ly that is an “in-stream advertising” company currently focused on monetizing Twitter. This has prompted many people to question whether advertising “in stream” and on Twitter is a good thing or a bad thing. We’re [...]
Note to Conference Organizers: Keep in Touch With People
Image via Wikipedia Over a number of conferences I have been at lately, one of the hallmarks of all of them was what could I do for them rather than what I would learn from the conference. Once the marketing folks realized that I would not provide them with anything, it is like we no [...]
The New Economics of Technology Startups?
I have recently been reading the book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” by Chris Anderson. Well I am not actually reading it as I find I do not have time for reading books any more. These days I do all of my “book reading” using audio books from Audible.com. I find that by [...]
CancelAds: New Startup Service to Help People Monetize Blogs
Of all the ways that people try to monetize blogs, and the many ways that users have of short circuiting those monetization efforts, a good friend of mine Svetlana Gladikova of Profy fame has introduced me to a new program called CancelAds. This might just be the middle ground between casual users who might click [...]
The Borg’s Cookies Are Delicious, Indeed
First of all, the basics: the absolutely best cookies on the face of Earth are Coach’s Oats Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies. Shame on you, Costco, for not carrying it anymore… now that you got me hooked, I have to mail order it at double cost. But today we’re talking about different kind of cookies – those [...]
Google’s New Behavioral Ad Targeting Should be Excellent for All
The discussion over Google’s latest move into behavioral ad targeting is all over TechMeme. Basically what this means is that Google will start selling users (or more specifically, clusters of users, like football fans for example) in addition to words: Today we are launching “interest-based” advertising as a beta test on our partner sites and [...]
So You Didn’t Make Millions: Don’t Quit Blogging Just Yet
Image via Wikipedia Do you know who Dan Lyons is? Of course .. Fake Steve Jobs. He just announced he’d quit blogging, since: While blogs can do many wonderful things, making huge amounts of money isn’t one of them. But wait! Did you know Dan Lyons 3 years ago? I admit I didn’t. Perhaps it’s [...]
Is Tivo Selling Out Their Customers? In-Show Ads to Come Soon.
Image via Wikipedia So there you have it – I promised CloudAve would be all about business, and am now ranting about a consumer service. But I feel somewhat justified, it fits a theme I started with Just Because You Can Does Not Mean You Should: the theme of appreciating your customers vs. squeezing them [...]
Free is Dead, Long Live Freemium
3 weeks ago we launched CloudAve in turbulent times, so barely a week later I ended up writing about How Software Can Be Resilient to Recession. The summary: go where the money is, and that’s businesses (“Enterprise” vs. consumer, even if it means small business) deliver value – useful functionality that improves business charge for [...]
